AVR Robot Controller 1.1 Hardware Description

R/C servo output

When driving an R/C servo, use the pins nearest to the edge of the board. They are marked with letters indicating polarity: “W R B” for White, Red, and Black. Some servo brands substitute yellow for white.

When driving servos, the board has the option of selecting regulated +5v or raw battery voltage to drive the servos. R/C servos are usually rated at 4.8v and 6.0v, but can be driven with 9-12 volts without damaging the internal electronics.

Higher voltages will increase speed and torque of the motors. A rough rule of

thumb is that doubling the voltage (9.6 vs. 4.8) doubles the RPM and the maximum torque of the servo.

Power Source

A 3-pin header is used to select the power source for the Motor Headers (V+ in the picture above) when used for R/C servos or encoders. There are two options: regulated +5 volts, or the battery supply. Use the shorting jumper to make this connection. The H-Bridge is always connected to the main power source.

In-System Programming and Option Select

The 2x5 pin header labeled ISP (and JP9) is for In-System Programming of the CPU. This is the mechanism by which the CPU is loaded with a new program. This connector works with any Kanda-compatible 10-pin AVR programmer. The cable connects to the ISP header with the pin 1 marker (a triangle) next to the 1 and caret printed on the board.

The header has a dual use. When the programming cable is removed, several of the pins may be used to select options or give feedback. All pins are available from the expansion headers – refer to the schematic for more details. In addition, one pin is used to control the program LED (green). This gives both visual feedback while programming, and can be controlled by the user’s program to give feedback.

When a shorting bar is across the inputs, the corresponding pin value will be zero. There are no pull-up resistors on these inputs, so you need to enable the CPU pull-up on those ports if you intend to use them as inputs.

Reset has no CPU readable input. It simply resets the CPU when shorted.

Pin

Pair label

Direction

IO port

9

A

Input

Pinb.6 (MISO)

7

B

Input

Pinb.7 (SCK)

5

 

Input

CPU reset

3

C (Prog LED)

Input/Output

Pinb.4/Portb.4

1

 

Output

Portb.5 (MOSI)

Options I/O port assignments

Program LED output

The program LED output is inverted. I.e. writing a 0 to portb.4 will illuminate the LED, writing a 1 will turn it off. Remember to configure that I/O pin as an output or it will never turn on. When using Option C as an input, you cannot use the LED (they are connected together).

11-3-2005

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SRS Labs SRS Robot Level 1 Kit In-System Programming and Option Select, Program LED output, Servo output, Power Source